There is NO lab total. The activity requires a Season. You are trying to use the Lab total rules to modify something that has NO lab total. "he spends a season in his lab". That is a direct quote from the section on Items Of Quality. See any mention of a lab total? The person who would be "changing the rules" is you. Bait and switch.
Yes, I do see mention of a Lab Total.
The only thing changed by spending less than 10 hours per day in the lab is that your Lab Total is smaller & you make the Item of Quality whether your Lab Total is 5 or 50. The rules for preparing an item for enchantment don't mention your Lab Total, nor do numerous other seasonal lab activities. If it (Item of Quality rules) didn't go out of its way to cite the presence of a Lab Total, then I wouldn't be defending this position.
Looking at it, I think the whole point of the 1 IoQ/season is to prevent them from being insanely common. At the same time, having to spend a whole season producing an item that gives you +1 or +2 to a few die rolls might be a little much. Personally, if I did a HR, I'd probably either : a) Allow something like a maximum number of IoQs = (Magic Theory/3ish) with a total bonuses of no more than their Philosophiae score split between them at a pawn of vis per item, or b) Allow specific activities that can be done in conjunction with enchanting a single IoQ, (such as Teaching an apprentice, instead of just providing Exposure); anything requiring a Lab Total would be a no-go, though, as would things like opening an item or studying from vis.
In both cases, you're never getting more than your maximum item bonus/season in IoQs and you're not getting extra seasons of lab work either.
It'd be one HR or the other for the saga, not a player choice every season, though.
The mention of the Lab total is to say it is unimportant. Perhaps to correct previous abuses by people doing things like opening items for enchantment in a "Season" that was an hour a day? Not buying it. There is NO lab total. The "mention" the way you read it, would include a lab total of zero, yes? So why would you spend even an hour a day on making it? Once you've learned the Mystery, you get a free Item of Quality every season. Yeah......
Thank you Jason72. I wouldn't house rule it, because we have canon rules to deal with this. A breakthrough to make 3 a season, or to open it up for enchantment while making it makes perfect sense, and would be a good project for a young Verditius. Be a good way to win the contest as a Journeyman if you can pull it off. I would think 5 to ten breakthrough points would be right. You aren't breaking or even bending any limits of Magic..... In canon, I this this hasn't happened yet, because it is, as you say, a small bonus, and Verditius move on to bigger projects. And I think NPCs are a lot less worried about Warping points then PCs, who are "playing the rules" to maximize their age.
If you're making a +1 or +2 IoQ, you're either badly uncreative or your Philosophiae sucks. Both should be punished.
If you only get to bring one latent quality to the surface and the only applicable bonus for what you need is +2, you're not really left with much choice, are you? Not every ST errs on the side of the of most liberal interpretation of the rules possible.
Your assumption must be incorrect according to effects written in the line. Those listed values are not built-in limits and can be improved upon. Just look at the naranj that allows these bonuses to be increased. Based on the guideline descriptions, a very difficult alchemical process can do the same. There are a couple other effects I can think of that may as well. But the naranj is enough; it clearly shows the listed bonuses are not maxima.
No. In response to essentially the same question a while ago:
Here is the full post:
If you spend a season in the lab, you generate a Lab Total. If it's attempting to make a 'correction', then the rest of the book would acknowledge this in some form elsewhere. But it doesn't.
Like magic resistance, there's a difference between 0 and none.
For me as a storyteller, I would 1) look to the item being made and the craft making it. If it would require a season in a workshop then no, you can't take time off.
2)ask what else would be done with the time. Adventure? Sure, we can throw in a short adventure for no penalty. Read a book? Not for study, you are spending the season in the lab. Certainly I would allow training but not teaching of an apprentice... which is at least better than exposure...
The converse is written in ArM5 and is true: if it there is a Lab Total, it takes a season. The following sentence, the one about not having a Lab Total meaning you're don't need to work in the lab, came up before and has been submitted to be removed in an upcoming errata update. Without that, there is nothing saying a season in the lab must generate a Lab Total.